Last month’s congressional TikTok hearing was both a symbol of deteriorating United States–China relations and an anxious reaction to a future in which the U.S. may no longer enjoy exclusive dominance over the technological landscape. TikTok is portrayed as the vanguard of a China-led world in which four of the five top mobile apps in the U.S. have Chinese origins, and China increasingly challenges the U.S. in AI supremacy and as an innovation-centric society.